The road freight corridors of KwaZulu-Natal are some of the busiest routes in South Africa. The N3/N11 corridor between Durban and Gauteng and the interior handles approximately 47 million tons of road freight per annum.

The N2 corridor route from Richards Bay to Mpumalanga via Piet Retief, is an important route for timber, coal and other commodities and handles approximately 10.5 million tons of road freight per annum.

To the South of Durban, the N2 corridor links KZN to the Eastern Cape and the southern regions of South Africa and handles approximately 9 million tons of road freight per annum.

From the surveys conducted in this project it is apparent that road traffic volumes continue to grow on most routes.

Survey Sites

56 strategic sites for freight surveys were selected. The sites selected cover the major Freight corridors in the KwaZulu-Natal Region.

Methodology

• Freight surveys ran between sunrise and sunset (generally 12 hr) periods
• Electronic Classified counts were used for factoring the manual surveys

Data collected included

• Vehicle class (number of axles)
• Vehicle type (flatbed, tipper etc)
• Commodity (what the vehicle was carrying). This was not always possible due to tarpaulins covering the load etc.
• Specific details of car carriers were taken i.e. how many vehicles on the carrier
• Specific details of container vehicles were taken i.e. how many containers and the sizes.

Detailed reports can be downloaded here